Story and Photos by Kyla Hurt
Illinois State Senator Doris Turner made her official visit to Grab ’n’ Grow Greenhouse on Tuesday, July 23. Turner was visiting the self-checkout greenhouse and small farmer’s market store, located at 1235 Sauer Road in Riggston, as part of her tour on her bill SB3219.
According to Grab ’n’ Grow Greenhouse owner Jenny Sauer-Schmidgall, Turner “was the one that wrote and received a unanimous ‘yay’ in both houses or her bill SB3219. That bill will allow other farmer-owned markets and/or grocery stores to apply for grant funding to help build their stores. [Turner] modeled this language after seeing our store and saying, ‘we need more of these across the state.’”
SB3219 has passed both the House and the Senate and was sent to Gov. Pritzker on June 21.
Sauer-Schmidgall started Grab ’n’ Grow Greenhouse in April 2022; in November 2022, she added the current building.
Grab ’n’ Grow Greenhouse has grown and Sauer-Schmidgall offers items for sale from 12 vendors. The business offers locally grown, locally made products. One hope is to “alleviate rural food deserts and have people eat real farm to table,” noted Sauer-Schmidgall.
During the visit, a handful of the producers who sell in Grab ’n’ Grow were present. Sen. Turner was able to speak to DoeEyed Dairy and Farm, James Spencer of Spencer’s Pork, Loree Herring of For Goodness Baked and Mark Schmidgall. Products sold at Grab ’n’ Grow are truly farm to table. Herring talked about her tomato-basil-garlic bread, which she makes using her own recipe and sun-dried tomatoes from her garden plus basil she grows and dries herself. There are no preservatives in the bread either.
As Turner walked and talked, she made her own shopping list, which included some of the homemade biscuit treats for her dog as well as orange-flavored (creamsicle) milk and pork steaks for her husband, among other products.
Everyone who sells out of Grab ’n’ Grow is fully licensed and offers some sort of clean nourishment. The vendors talked about how well they have each done through Grab ’n’ Grow as well, noting that they have had to increase product or re-stock much more often than initially expected. The idea of a self-checkout store in this rural community is apparently just what was needed, offering accessibility and fresh products at the ready.
The self-checkout concept is one that has intrigued Kelsey Duncan, of Hull. Duncan owns Bear Bloom Company, growing flowers for sale. She currently sells out of a small stand in her front yard, but has plans for a business similar to that of Sauer-Schmidgall. Duncan stated that the idea spoke to her because of “not having the overhead of an employee, but still serving the community.” Hull is a small village in Pike County that does not currently have a grocery store.
Turner stayed and talked for about an hour, saying how great it was to see this store in-person. “I was very impressed. … It’s wonderful. It’s much more than I ever imagined, because just talking to [Sauer-Schmidgall] about it, you know, I had this visual in my head … it’s truly amazing. … It really solidifies the comments that I made on the Senate floor when I was trying to promote the bill … because I talked about the economic impact piece of it, and just talking to all of the vendors really hits home with that. And then I also talked about how the products were fresh and farm to table. So, again, just seeing the products and knowing that there’s no processing and everything is … they know what’s in it, really just solidifies everything that I said about it. I definitely will be back because I’m very impressed with it.”
Turner finished with a smile, “We’re going to make it so that these are popping up everywhere.”
